Exercise drug could benefit heart failure patients

A drug being designed to treat exercise-related fatigue could also benefit patients suffering from heart failure, researchers hope.

Scientists at Columbia University found that the fatigue experienced after strenuous exercise is due to leaking muscle cells, which allow calcium to leak continuously inside the cells.

They believe that the same leaks are responsible for the fatigue experienced by heart failure patients and hope that a drug designed to block the calcium leaks could benefit both groups of people.

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The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and first author Dr Andrew Bellinger, from Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons, commented: 'Our new paper shows that fatigue in both patients and athletes probably stems from the same leak.'

Heart failure affects around 690,000 people in the UK and occurs when the heart is unable to pump enough blood throughout the body.

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